“Crown ED Emperor Of Mutapa”, Says Self-styled Prince In Viral X Thread

An individual describing himself as the “Prince of the Mutapa Kingdom” has posted a 20-part thread on X arguing that President Emmerson Mnangagwa should be crowned “Emperor of Mutapa” as part of his retirement.

The thread, posted under the heading THE IMPERIAL RETURN, claims Zimbabwe is “historically, spiritually and culturally a kingdom, not a Western republic” and calls for a return to monarchy “to secure cohesion and lasting peace”.

The author argues that Mnangagwa’s “decades of complex state leadership” and “institutional memory” dating to the 1960s liberation struggle make him “seamlessly fit for the monarchy”.

He further cites Mnangagwa’s origins in Masvingo Province, described as “the foundational ancestral cradle of Great Zimbabwe”, as giving him “an unbroken, true hereditary royal bloodline”.

According to the thread, Mutapa elders in the late 1700s decreed that imperial power should rotate among senior totem lineages to preserve unity.

It claims the last Munhumutapa sealed a “sacred covenant” that, after 100 years, the crown would pass to the Shumba lion clan, which traditionally ran the empire’s army.

The thread identifies Mnangagwa’s great-grandfather as “a fierce and celebrated general” from the Shumba line who was “explicitly promised the next succession”.

The author contends that British colonialism “violently interrupted” the rotation when King Chioko fell in 1902, replacing it with a “foreign, divisive Western republican system”.

With colonialism “completely defeated”, the thread says, Zimbabwe now has a “vital spiritual duty” to return to monarchy to “appease the ancestors” and “cure past injustices”.

Crowning Mnangagwa emperor, the thread argues, would fulfil the “unexecuted pre-colonial covenant” and place a “non-political” monarch above “treacherous daily factional battles”.

It says a permanent monarchy would act as a “neutral umbrella” over politics, binding Zimbabweans across parties and ending “endless cycles of harmful fragmentation”.

The author argues that returning to the “Mutapa model” would align governance with “our ethnos” and “ensure stability forevermore”.

Meanwhile, senior government officials, including Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, and ruling party members have taken to referring to President Mnangagwa as “Munhumutapa” — in a show of loyalty and to assert his supreme authority.

ZANU-PF has also moved to rebrand Mnangagwa’s birthday, 15 September, as “Munhumutapa Day”, using the celebrations to lionise his leadership and legacy.

His government has extended the Mutapa motif into public and economic life. The nation’s sovereign wealth fund was renamed the Mutapa Investment Fund, and the ZIFA Munhumutapa Challenge Cup was launched in 2026, further embedding the ancient empire’s name across state institutions.

The Mutapa Empire, also known as Monomotapa, was a pre-colonial Shona state that dominated parts of modern-day Zimbabwe and Mozambique between the 15th and 18th centuries.